Hizballah continues its takeover of Lebanon, targets Christians, says "We are the state"

A couple of troubling stories from Lebanon indicate that Hizballah, already under pressure because of its support for the Syrian regime, is acting to put more parts of Lebanon under its direct control - especially Christian areas.

Here is the story of a journalist who was assaulted and threatened by Hizballah forces:

A day after Hezbollah detained Journalist Hussein Shamas it assaulted at one of its a checkpoints near Galerie Samaan, a mostly Christian area bordering the Hezbollah stronghold of Dhahieh , Al Anwar newspaper journalist Maha al Rifai , who was beaten , cursed and insulted by the Hezbollah elements that were manning the the checkpoint .

This is all under the pretext of special security measures, that the Iranian backed militant group has been conducting in several parts of Lebanon.

Rifai , who was outraged later told her story to the Future TV. They reportedly demanded her car registration and drivers license but refused to give them back to her. When she asked about the reasons behind holding her documents and asked to contact a Lebanese Internal Security Officer she was told :” We are the state …get into your car you animal” and started cursing her .

When she insisted that a Lebanese internal police officer should attend to the matter one of the Hezbollah elements tried to hit her with an electric cane .

Minutes later a member of the Lebanese Internal security ( intelligence branch) arrived and when she threatened to report this to the media the intelligence officer gave her the car documents.

One of the Hezbollah elements then told her : “Don’t you ever think you can come back to the Dhahieh area” and continued to curse her.

Rifai concluded that Hezbollah is undermining Lebanon’s sovereignty and security, restricting freedom of speech and freedom of movement all under the pretext of special security measure following the bomb attacks in its Dhahieh stronghold

Back in 2008 it was revealed that Hizballah was wiretapping the telecommunications networks of Lebanon. Lebanese officials expressed alarm and denounced the action, but they were powerless to stop it.

Now, it appears that Hizballah's wiretapping is accelerating, especially in Christian areas:

Hezbollah is reportedly expanding its telecommunications network into the mostly Christian city Zahleh in the Beqaa region, Voice of Lebanon (100.5) radio reported on Sunday.

VOL noted that Zahleh “is witnessing an armed presence by Hezbollah members, notably in the industrial area [of the town].”

Hezbollah has been at the center of controversy over the years for the weapons it owns as well as its private communications network .

In another development Radio Free Lebanon reported that the Shiite militant party has established a wiretapping network in several towns along Lebanon’s western mountain range. It added that part of the data Hezbollah collects from this network is immediately sent to Iran.

In 2011 Beqaa’s Tarshish residents protested against the installation of Hezbollah’s network in their town using the state’s network infrastructure. MTV station reported back in October 2011 that Hezbollah threatened residents of Tarshish of a repeat of the May 2008 events after they prevented the party members from installing a telecommunications network in the town which is close to Zahle.

Of the three nominally equal Lebanese religious groups of Shiites, Sunnis and Christians, the Christians are by far the weakest. Their members have been fleeing the country for decades. It seems that Hizballah is now targeting any Christian areas near Shiite strongholds in its attempt to cement its hold on Lebanon itself.

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Whatever happened to the Arafat polonium probe?

Remember last year when Yasir Arafat's bones were dug up to see if a Swiss laboratory could determine if
he died of polonium poisoning?

Remember how the amount of polonium found on his underwear would have indicated an amount that would have killed a normal person in less than a day, although he was sick for weeks?

Remember how the exhumation of Arafat's body was far from transparent, but only a PA pathologist was allowed to touch it and how the PA insisted that Russian experts be on the scene as well - even though Russia had nothing to do with it?

At the time, we were told that it would take about four months for the Swiss to come to a conclusion about the matter.

Then the Swiss said they'd be finished by late spring. The Spectator thought the report would be released by the first day of summer.

The latest word comes from Xinhua, on August 13:

Test results of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's corpse would be handed to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in the middle of September, a PNA official said Tuesday.

A Swiss lab that examined samples from Arafat's remains would complete the results around the middle of September, said Tawfiq Al-Tirawi, head of the Palestinian committee that follows the investigation into Arafat's death in 2004.

"So far, the Swiss lab did not give us any initial indications or results on the deaths of Arafat's death," Al-Tirawi told Xinhua. However, he added that there were no obstacles preventing the results from being handed down and declared next month.

Well, its the middle of September, and we still haven't heard anything..

I am not a fan of conspiracy theories, but if the PLO asked the Russians for help in planting polonium on the samples while onsite, it might explain the delays. It would be very difficult to plant such tiny amounts in the tissue samples and keep them consistent with each other, as well as with making it look like a slow poisoning death. If the Swiss are seeing inconsistent results they might suspect something, but they are not criminal investigators and any theories about someone purposefully planting polonium would be outside their mandate.

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When Israel pays students to post on social media, it's terrible. But what about Turkey?

Last month, the world media breathlessly reported "Students offered grants if they tweet pro-Israeli propaganda." Reaction from the usual suspects was immediate and scathing, as if somehow it sullies the idea of social media to begin with. How dare Israel take advantage of the same tools that every company on the planet is trying to exploit?

Today a story was released that will certainly get no such reactions:

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has launched a massive project to boost the party’s social media presence by hiring over 6,000 new employees for its newly formed social media team, according to daily Star.

Over 900 districts will have its own AKP social media representatives, with a 1,000 staff to be located in Istanbul, 600 in Ankara, and approximately 400 in İzmir.

The team will be responsible for converting AKP sentiments into trending hashtags, Star reported.

The move came soon after the AKP was dealt a clear defeat in social media when Gezi protesters turned websites like Twitter and Facebook into tools for organizing protests, voicing mostly anti-government sentiments.

Do you hear that? It's the sound of a big yawn when someone other than Israel tries to take advantage of Twitter and Facebook.

By the way, there was similar concern when the State of Israel put this infographic on Buzzfeed - even though the article admitted that the UK government also posts on BuzzFeed.

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Guardian reviews book on history of Jews, Arabs freak out

Last week, in The Guardian, Tom Holland wrote about a book by Simon Schama called The Story of the Jews, which has also been a recent TV series.

The book appears to be interesting although quite at odds with the rabbinical traditions of how Jewish history unfolded. Nevertheless, it accepts that Jews today are descended from the Jews of Biblical times, who lived in Judea.

This is too much for Arab newspaper Moheet, which blares on its headline that The Guardian is pushing The Big Lie that "Jews are God's Chosen People from their homeland Palestine."

Here's what The Guardian says:

How, though, are "Jews" to be defined: as an ethnic grouping or as the adherents of a god? The Bible, that titanic record of their beginnings, and without which they would surely long since have gone the way of the Moabites, blurs the question by casting them as both. Not merely a people, they are a Chosen People, united by a common line of descent from Abraham and a code of laws inherited, via Moses, directly from YHWH. Simultaneously fantastical and transcendent, this is a narrative that plays directly to one of Schama's greatest strengths. He has always had a genius for celebrating the myths he is simultaneously deconstructing. The methods of analysis he once applied to the Dutch republic and the French revolution are now applied to holy writ. Jews first become Jews, in Schama's telling of their story, by a feat of willpower. Tradition generates its own backstory, which then takes on the cast of reality. "The Hebrew Bible is the imprint of the Jewish mind, the picture of its imagined origins and ancestry."

Through the bizarre filters of the Moheet author's mind, he translates this into "Jews are God's chosen people, according to the Torah, which is why the United States is an advocate for their rights!... [The book] confirms the idea that the Bible was written in Hebrew, which indicates that it represents the imprint of the Jewish mind."

Moheet goes on:

Then the author repeats fanatical Zionist lies: that Jews survived without their Palestine, spread out in different countries governed by various historical, political and cultural laws that helped to preserve their Jewish identity.

Jewish history is now a Zionist lie!

Moheet also says the article states:

It's time to write about the history of the deep faith of the Jews, and the importance of following the Torah and the rabbis to return to their homeland and Jewish identity.

I couldn't find anything close to that quote.

In the end, this hysterical review proves that for Arabs, the threat isn't Zionism - the threat is Judaism. The very existence of Jews, conitnuing to practice a faith that predates Islam by millennia and that indeed Islam stole many of its ideas from, continuing to venerate Israel and its holy places that still exist from before Mohammed was born - that is the scariest idea in the Muslim world that must be fought tooth and nail.

Because the truth indicates that Islam isn't so special, but rather it is a pale derivative of a religion that is still going strong.

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9/15 Links: BBC Claims Egypt acted 'pre-emptively' against Israel in '73, Jerusalem’s Etrog Man

From Ian:

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BBC’s educational resource website describes Yom Kippur attack by Syria and Egypt as ‘pre-emptive’

Consider then the statement below which appears in the section titled “The Middle East from the 1880s” on the BBC’s ‘Learning Zone’ website: supposedly a resource for secondary school educators.

“During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Syria acted pre-emptively against Israel at the Suez Canal.” [emphasis added]

Beyond the rather obvious fact that Syrian forces were nowhere near the Suez Canal at the time, the description of ‘Operation Badr’ as a pre-emptive action is clearly inaccurate. The Israeli government had not ordered a general mobilization of reserve forces during the build-up to the Egyptian and Syrian surprise attack and the US had received confirmation from Golda Meir that no pre-emptive Israeli strike would take place.

Netanyahu: Actions, not words, will be test for Syria and Iran

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed cautious optimism over the US-Russian deal, which will begin its implementation with Syria reporting on its chemical weapons stock by the end of the week.
However, he said, the commitments had to backed up by actions, not only in Syria but in Iran as well.
“We hope the understandings bear fruit. Those understandings will be judged by the results,” he said, referring to the total destruction of Syria’s chemical arms, which should take place by mid-2014. “The test of the results also applies to the efforts by the international community to stop Iran’s nuclear armaments. There, too, not words but actions will be the deciding factor.”
Netanyahu added that Israel now needed to have the ability to defend itself more than ever.

Israel: We’ve been ‘absolutely certain’ for months Assad using nerve gas

In his April address, Brun showed a photo of a child with narrowed pupils and foam coming out of his mouth. Both of these were indicative of a nerve agent, he said. He repeated those indicators in the Saturday interview, broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 news, while making plain that the IDF had other, more conclusive, sources of information.
Israeli military intelligence reportedly played a key role in providing evidence of Assad’s chemical weapons use in the August 21 attack that sparked the current crisis over Syria. On the Friday after that attack, Channel 2 reported that the weapons were fired by the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Army, a division under the command of the Syrian president’s brother, Maher Assad. The nerve gas shells were fired from a military base in a mountain range to the west of Damascus, the TV report said.

Kerry briefs Israel’s leaders on Syria deal

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier Sunday expressed cautious optimism about the deal.
Officials in Jerusalem said late Saturday Israel would of course be delighted to see the regime of President Bashar Assad stripped of chemical weapons, but that Israel is extremely wary of the unfolding diplomatic framework, concerned that Assad is bent on buying time, and that the optimistic timetable set out in Saturday’s agreement will not be adhered to. Kerry will meet a “skeptical” Israeli leadership.
Kerry was to have met with Netanyahu later this week in Rome, but Netanyahu cancelled his planned trip amid the current regional tensions.

Obama: Military action still on table if Syria diplomacy fails

Obama said the United States will continue working with Russia, the United Kingdom, France, the United Nations and others to "ensure that this process is verifiable, and that there are consequences should the Assad regime not comply with the framework agreed today."
"In part because of the credible threat of US military force, we now have the opportunity to achieve our objectives through diplomacy," he added.
US forces were still positioned for possible military strikes on Syria.
"We haven't made any changes to our force posture to this point," Pentagon spokesman George Little said in a statement Saturday.

McCain and Graham Slam Syria Agreement

The two called the agreement “meaningless” and said it sends the wrong signal to Iran, which is suspected of building a nuclear weapon.
The Republican senators said the framework agreement reached by Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is toothless without the UN Security Council Resolution that threatens the use of force should Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad fail to comply.

Putin Puts International Law Before War

However, Putin now certainly needs to explain the lack of "real leverage" demonstrated by the failure of those same 5 Permanent Members to agree on the terms of a resolution to end the 30 month civil war in Syria that has already claimed over 100000 lives, created 2 million refugees and displaced 5 million Syrians in their own country.
Russia needs to do its own soul searching as it continues to exercise its veto vote to paralyse all efforts by the majority of the other Permanent Members to obtain a Security Council Resolution to try and end this humanitarian outrage.
Russia cannot continue to be the impediment frustrating any resolutions to try and end this conflict - if Putin wants to be taken seriously.

Video Reveals Key Iranian Role in Syrian Civil War

Remarkable footage has emerged of Iranian military forces on the ground in Syria, fighting alongside pro-government militias.
Shia Iran is the Assad regime's closest ally, along with the Hezbollah terrorist group, and Iranian support is nothing new. But whilst Hezbollah has officially acknowledged that its fighters are actively engaged in battle on behalf of the Assad regime, Iranian officials always maintained that any Iranian presence in Syria and support for the Assad regime was limited to logistical support and "military advisers," away from the front lines.

20 trucks with Syrian chemical equipment said sent to Iraq

Twenty trucks laden with equipment used in the manufacture of chemical weapons were driven across the border from Syria into Iraq on Thursday and Friday, the Lebanese newspaper Al-Mustaqbal reported on Sunday.
The trucks were “heavily protected” by security forces, and were not inspected by border guards, the paper reported, adding that its sources confirmed the illicit cargo.

Guardian Jerusalem Syndrome: Giles Fraser fears Judaisation of Temple Mount

Lending polemical support to such an often repeated lie that Israel – which allows freedom of worship for all faiths at holy sites in Jerusalem – represents a threat to the Temple Mount (the holiest site in Judaism), is the Guardian’s Giles Fraser, whose latest piece at ‘Comment is Free’ is titled ‘An Israeli claim to Temple Mount Would Trigger Unimaginable Violence.’

Feiglin Challenges Waqf Control over Temple Mount

In his response, Gordon stated that the policy of Muslim control over the Temple Mount was a government decision taken immediately after the liberation of Jerusalem in 1967.
Feiglin, however, was unimpressed.
"Since I am not aware of any such government decision since 1967 to grant control over the Mount to the Waqf, I request that you supply me with a copy [of the decision," he retorted.
Feiglin went on to point out that - far from deciding to hand the site over the Muslim authorities - a number of ministerial committees clearly stated that the opposite was true.

Israeli Health Care of Palestinians

Once again Israel is coming under attack from a foreign government financed NGO, this time claiming Israel is ignoring its humanitarian obligations with regard to the taking care of the health of the Palestinians.
In spite of the constant calls for Israel’s destruction and the culture of hatred and demonization that permeates Palestinian society at all levels, Israel is, in fact, meeting its humanitarian obligations in respect of the Palestinians, albeit under circumstances fraught with danger.

Border Police Come Under Attack in Anata

A video has been released showing Border Police unit coming under attack during a routine patrol on Yom Kippur. The unit was driving through the Arab town of Anata, near Jerusalem, when local youths attacked with concrete blocks, bottles, and buckets of paint.
A local man filmed the attack and uploaded footage. The video shows the reality of “rock attacks,” which often involve heavy concrete blocks thrown from upper floors of buildings.

Putin to visit Iran for first time in six years

“Putin has been invited to Iran, and he will certainly take advantage of this kind invitation,” the Interfax news agency quoted spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying on Friday. “The dates of the visit will be agreed upon through diplomatic channels.”
The announcement came on the heels of a report that Russia had agreed to sell to Iran the advanced S-300 air defense system and construct a new nuclear reactor at the Bushehr site.

New IOC head to resign from controversial Arab-German trade group

Thomas Bach, a German sports functionary who was elected Tuesday for an initial eight-year term at the helm of the IOC, is the chairman of Ghorfa, the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Founded in 1976, the organization is accused of helping companies make sure they avoid any trade with Israel. Since Bach’s election last week in Buenos Aires, several Jewish groups have called on Bach to step down from his position at the trade group.
Bach also came under fire from Jewish groups for opposing a minute of silence for the Israeli victims of the Munich 1972 terror attack during last year’s Olympic Games in London.

Tel Aviv University, China’s Tsinghua University to Create XIN Life Sciences Center in China

In a statement reported by Israel’s Globes business daily, the two universities said they plan to create a research center to be called XIN, which means “new” in Chinese. They will dedicate “hundreds of millions of dollars” to set up the research institute which will focus on life sciences and nanotechnology, and co-ordinate frequently with high-tech industry.
The agreement between the two educational institutions comes as China seeks to harness Israeli innovation, in major ways, including establishing a technology incubator in Israel and beefing up the frequency of flights between the two countries to facilitate business interaction.

Sapiens wins 2 financial services contracts for NIS 80m

One contract with Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings Ltd. (TASE: CLIS), which selected Sapiens Life & Pensions software to manage its pensions portfolio, in a multimillion dollar deal.
The second contract is a follow-on deal with that LV= Ltd., the UK's largest friendly society and a leading financial mutual, with more than five million members, which renewed its maintenance and services contract with Sapiens for five years. The contract is worth $10.5 million (NIS 38 million).

Meet Jerusalem’s Etrog Man

If you’ve ever been to the century-old Jerusalem marketplace Machane Yehuda and haven’t stopped by the booth of third-generation Yemenite healer Uzi-Eli Chezi, it’s time for a return visit.
Click below to see how Uzi-Eli has built his citywide reputation on drinks and cosmetic preparations using native plants including the fragrant etrog, or citron, which is better known for its starring role in the Sukkot holiday.

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Ian Lustick's science fiction in the New York Times

Science fiction does not only deal with fantasies about the future. It also sometimes includes alternate history, describing how events would have unfolded had something different happened years ago.

Ian Lustick in the New York Times shows his anti-Israel bias by writing both alternate history and a fantasy future in his article against the two-state solution. Not to mention some old-fashioned fiction:

Israeli governments cling to the two-state notion because it seems to reflect the sentiments of the Jewish Israeli majority and it shields the country from international opprobrium, even as it camouflages relentless efforts to expand Israel’s territory into the West Bank.

No, the Israeli government supports a two state solution because of a combination of worries about a mostly mythical demographic time-bomb and because of relentless pressure from the US. These are pretty basic facts. Does Lustick really think, after so many years, that Israel would make decisions like this only to shield itself from criticism? He must have been asleep during 1967, Entebbe, Osirak, and a couple of times in Gaza.

American politicians need the two-state slogan to show they are working toward a diplomatic solution, to keep the pro-Israel lobby from turning against them and to disguise their humiliating inability to allow any daylight between Washington and the Israeli government.

Ah, it's all because of the Jewish Lobby. It isn't the Us driving the current peace talks, but AIPAC controlling, um, the State Department.

I'm sorry. I shouldn't make fun of an "expert."

It is true that the Oslo process is a sham. It is true that the current conventional wisdom that "everyone knows" what an eventual solution will look like has been dead wrong for at least 12 years, ever since the PLO rejected the Clinton parameters and chose to start a terror war instead.

Oh, I'm sorry again. Lustick seems, throughout this entire 2200 word essay, to have ignored the intifada as being something that might be blamed on Palestinian Arabs. Instead, he obliquely blames Israel, starting his alternate history segment with:

Had America blown the whistle on destructive Israeli policies back then it might have greatly enhanced prospects for peace under a different leader. It could have prevented Mr. Begin’s narrow electoral victory in 1981 and brought a government to power that was ready to negotiate seriously with the Palestinians before the first or second intifada and before the construction of massive settlement complexes in the West Bank. We could have had an Oslo process a crucial decade earlier.

He speaks about a "peace process" in 1980 which didn't exist.

Indeed, Lustick seems to be peculiarly one-sided in assigning blame for the failure of Oslo. Terror, incitement, intransigence on the part of the PLO simply is not worth mentioning. Only Jews wanting to live in the homeland of their ancestors is the obstacle.

Lustick then turns to more traditional science fiction, as he describes his hopes and dreams of how shuttering the peace process today will ultimately bring about a better Middle East:

With a status but no role, what remains of the Palestinian Authority will disappear. Israel will face the stark challenge of controlling economic and political activity and all land and water resources from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The stage will be set for ruthless oppression, mass mobilization, riots, brutality, terror, Jewish and Arab emigration and rising tides of international condemnation of Israel. And faced with growing outrage, America will no longer be able to offer unconditional support for Israel. Once the illusion of a neat and palatable solution to the conflict disappears, Israeli leaders may then begin to see, as South Africa’s white leaders saw in the late 1980s, that their behavior is producing isolation, emigration and hopelessness.

Fresh thinking could then begin about Israel’s place in a rapidly changing region. There could be generous compensation for lost property. Negotiating with Arabs and Palestinians based on satisfying their key political requirements, rather than on maximizing Israeli prerogatives, might yield more security and legitimacy. Perhaps publicly acknowledging Israeli mistakes and responsibility for the suffering of Palestinians would enable the Arab side to accept less than what it imagines as full justice. And perhaps Israel’s potent but essentially unusable nuclear weapons arsenal could be sacrificed for a verified and strictly enforced W.M.D.-free zone in the Middle East.

You see? If we just abandon Oslo, then the ugly face of Jewish Israelis can be revealed to the world! Right now, articles like Lustick's in small papers like The New York Times aren't enough to demonize Israel - we need to set the stage for Israel to start killing lots and lots of Arabs, who will naturally and nobly start terrorizing Jews as is their right under oppression.  The international pressure can properly blame Israel for its awful apartheid-like policies of trying to defend its civilian population and we can get rid of this ridiculous idea of a Jewish state once and for all.

Palestinian Arab insistence on a capital in Jerusalem, on the 1949 armistice lines and on the "return" of millions of Arabs into Israel are  "key political requirements." Israeli insistence on an undivided Jerusalem, defensible borders and a Jewish state are "maximizing Israeli prerogatives."

Lustick's foray into science fiction moves more towards fantasy in his next paragraph:

In such a radically new environment, secular Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank could ally with Tel Aviv’s post-Zionists, non-Jewish Russian-speaking immigrants, foreign workers and global-village Israeli entrepreneurs. Anti-nationalist ultra-Orthodox Jews might find common cause with Muslim traditionalists. Untethered to statist Zionism in a rapidly changing Middle East, Israelis whose families came from Arab countries might find new reasons to think of themselves not as “Eastern,” but as Arab. Masses of downtrodden and exploited Muslim and Arab refugees, in Gaza, the West Bank and in Israel itself could see democracy, not Islam, as the solution for translating what they have (numbers) into what they want (rights and resources). Israeli Jews committed above all to settling throughout the greater Land of Israel may find arrangements based on a confederation, or a regional formula more attractive than narrow Israeli nationalism.

Every one of Lustick's  scenarios betrays either a remarkable ability to write speculative fiction or a remarkable blindness to the Arab, Muslim, Zionist and Jewish psyches, all at once.

And so it goes. An extremist position to dismantle Israel and eventually replace it with another Arab state (albeit with a large Jewish minority), spiced up with wishful thinking of a bizarre utopian fantasy where Jew-hatred is not an inherent part of the Arab and Muslim mindset so the resultant state will treat Jews as honored citizens with equal rights, is published in the New York Times.

The fantasy fiction of Ian Lustick will be discussed over brunch this morning in New York and Washington as if it makes all the sense in the world.

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Arabic Jew-news roundup

Al Wafd, newspaper of a secular Egyptian party, accuses Hamas of being behind a lot of the Sinai jihadist "Instead of fighting the Jews, Hamas turned to fight the Egyptians."

This was the illustration fot that article

attacks, which is a usual motif in the Egyptian press lately. (I have seen very little verifiable evidence of this, although there is evidence that some Gaza groups are helping Sinai jihadists.) It chastises Hamas by saying that the organization spout slogans but doesn't do anything about the Jews.

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The Jordanzad news site has an op-ed saying that the current talks between Israel and the PLO is really a talk between Jews...and Jews. Mahmoud Abbas, the writer says, has turned his job into doing whatever the Israelis tell him to do.

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Al Hadath News reports on the recent Washington Post interview with Brigitte Hoss, daughter of Rudolf Höss, Kommandant of Auschwitz who was found to be living in a Washington, DC suburb. While the WaPo article described the horrors of Auschwitz along with the interview, this Arab paper quoted only the parts of the interview that could be used to cast doubt on the Holocaust:

She questions that millions were killed. “How can there be so many survivors if so many had been killed?” she asks.

When I point out that her father confessed to being responsible for the death of more than a million Jews, she says the British “took it out of him with torture.”

The article also quotes her saying “I am still scared here in Washington. There are a lot Jewish people, and they still hate the Germans. It never ends.”

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Another JordanZad piece adds a wrinkle on an old conspiracy theory. You see, Israel installed cameras on the Temple Mount, and they allow Jews to visit "al-Aqsa." The reason is that they are planning an earthquake, and they want to bury Jews in the rubble, to make the world sympathetic with the dead Jews and no one will think about the destruction of the Al Aqsa Mosque.

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The Christian-Muslim Commission for support of Jerusalem, one of the many anti-Jewish groups out there, came out with a press release that was published verbatim in some Arab media outlets. It warns that Jews plan to march in the streets of Jerusalem during the upcoming Sukkot holiday and calls for Arabs to wake up and take action against it. This has been a motif that has been increasing lately in the Arab press, as organizations such as this one and the Al Aqsa Foundation are desperately trying to incite Arabs to revolt.

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Al Quds Educational TV notes that Yom Kippur brought Jerusalem to a standstil as thousands gathered for prayers at the Kotel, another unforgivable crime. The organization described Yom Kippur as the "anniversary of the 1973 October war."

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Yemen newspaper: "Jews are the natural enemy of Muslims"

Mainstream Yemen newspaper Al Masdar has an antisemitic op-ed today.

Starting off with the idea that Jews are Freemasons who have endeavored to destabilize the Muslim world for centuries, the piece claims that Jews are behind the turmoil and revolutions in all Arab countries, using the playbook of - you guessed it - the Talmud.

"Jews are the natural enemy of Muslims," the article continues, as they have been behind the murder of the Prophets. Now they are using their money to control the minds of weak Arab leaders. (It is unclear if he is referring to Yemen itself, which has seen lots of civil wars over recent decades.)

Now Arab rulers are themselves in the lead, "under the Masonic tunic," to destroy the Muslim 'umma.

But make no mistake - Jews are behind everything, their dirty fingers involved in all the strife in the Middle East.

The sad part is, international focus on Israel from the UN, US and EU - where leaders routinely declare that the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict is the core issue of the region - shows that the world's viewpoint is not too different from what crazed Jew-hating Arab op-ed writers believe.

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Egypt's siege of Gaza continues

From Ma'an:

Egyptian authorities kept the Rafah crossing with Gaza closed for a fourth consecutive day on Saturday.

There have been frequent closures of the terminal in recent weeks due to political unrest in Egypt and violence in the Sinai peninsula.

The Palestinian Authority ambassador to Egypt, Barakat al-Farra, urged Gazan students enrolled in Egyptian universities to send their details to the embassy in Cairo so that arrangements can be made to obtain special permits to allow students to cross into Egypt.

The ambassador told Ma'an that his team will contact Egyptian universities to try to delay examinations for Palestinian students who are not able to cross into the country.

This being Ma'an, they have to throw in some anti-Israel lies as well:

The crossing is the only way most Palestinians in Gaza can enter or leave the territory. Israel imposes an air and sea blockade on the enclave, and its border is closed to Palestinians.

Well, in July Israel allowed 4002 people through Erez, including 1000 patients and family members plus many businessmen (34% of total, although I don't know how many of those live in Gaza. Many certainly do, though.)

It seems likely that more Gazans crossed Erez Shalom in August than crossed Rafah.

Still don't see any anti-Egypt flotillas, though. Funny, that.

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Big Bad Wolf IDF blows poor Arabs' houses down: report

A real headline in the official PA WAFA news agency:

Wind Caused by Israeli Helicopter Blows Away Homes in Jordan Valley

Wind caused by landing Israeli military helicopters Thursday blew away three Palestinian canvas tents used as homes in an area in the Jordan Valley, according to witnesses.

They said the Israeli helicopters landed in the middle of an area where Palestinian herders reside causing three tents to be blown away due to the wind caused by the helicopter blades, displacing three families who were left without shelter.

"I'll huff, and I'll puff..."

Even though this happened on Thursday, not even the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) or B'Tselem have bothered mentioning this on their site, perhaps because they know quite well that a high percentage of Arab stories are completely bogus, and they'll only publicize those that have at least a tiny grain of truth.

The only major site to republish this "news" is, of course, Mondoweiss, since their editorial policy is "if it is anti-Israel, it requires no fact-checking."

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9/14 Links: Poll-Obama Unable to Handle Iran, Ban Ki-moon-UN has Failed Syria, Gas Pipeline to Turkey

From Ian:

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Israeli Poll: After Syria, Jewish State Can’t Trust Obama on Iran

In a new Israel Hayom poll, a majority of Israeli Jews—66.7 percent—characterized U.S. President Barack Obama’s handling of the Syria crisis as “not successful.” Meanwhile, 65.3 percent said that given Obama’s conduct regarding Syria, he would not be able to successfully deal with the Iran nuclear program.
A plurality of Israeli Jews—49.7 percent—said Obama’s decision to delay a military strike against Syria was wrong, while 32.8 percent said he made the right choice.

Karl Vick’s Latest Dispatch From Jerusalem is Just Laughable

According to Vick, Israel then fell in love with President Obama. He is now “being hailed as a model of principled resolve, a Churchillian figure,” he claims.
“Rather than focusing on what Obama could not do — line up anywhere near a Congressional majority for a military strike — Israelis focused on what he did: Use the consistent threat of military force to extract a promise from Syria and its most powerful patron, Russia, to remove tons of chemical weapons from Israel’s northern border,” Vick writes.
Unashamedly, the backup for his grand pronouncement on the consensus, mood and ultimate “verdict” of “Israelis” amounts to a series of handpicked opinion quotations from a total of two notoriously left wing Israeli newspapers.

Mark Steyn: American Ineffectualism

Every American ally is cringing with embarrassment at the amateurishness of the last month.
For generations, eminent New York Times wordsmiths have swooned over foreign strongmen, from Walter Duranty’s Pulitzer-winning paeans to the Stalinist utopia to Thomas L. Friedman’s more recent effusions to the “enlightened” Chinese Politburo. So it was inevitable that the cash-strapped Times would eventually figure it might as well eliminate the middle man and hire the enlightened strongman direct. Hence Vladimir Putin’s impressive debut on the op-ed page this week.

Guardian publishes essay on Oslo by one-stater who blames Jews for antisemitism

The 20 year history of Oslo, Shlaim claims in his CiF essay, has vindicated Edward Said’s characterization of the agreement “an instrument of Palestinian surrender, a Palestinian Versailles”, and predicts that “as long as Netanyahu remains in power, it is a safe bet that no breakthrough will be achieved in the new round of talks.”
Shlaim, it should be noted, perfectly represents the Guardian’s institutional hostility to Zionism, as the Oxford affiliated new Israeli historian (who’s been roundly criticized for his shoddy research) has characterized Zionism as the greatest single threat to Jews, blaming Israeli Jewish behavior for the upsurge of anti-Semitism throughout the world.

United Nations' Syria chemical weapons report "overwhelming," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says

The secretary-general said it was a "failure" that the U.N. couldn't resolve the ongoing conflict, a statement that sent some shock waves around the corridors of U.N. headquarters.
"It's an incredible situation that the Security Council has not been able to adopt any single resolution, even humanitarian, even humanitarian issues, not to mention political and security issues," said Ban. "They are divided. I am very much troubled by this. This is failure by the United Nations."

Obama amenable to toothless Syria resolution, say officials

Senior White House officials said Friday that President Barack Obama may be open to a UN resolution to secure Syria’s chemical weapons that does not include the threat of military force for failing to abide by the agreement.
The officials say Obama retains the authority to launch a strike, but Russia is expected to veto a resolution that includes a military trigger.
The officials also outlined for the first time a timetable for negotiations with Russia over Syria’s chemical weapons. The officials say they will know within a few weeks whether that effort has the necessary traction.

Syrian opposition: Don’t let Assad stall while he keeps on killing

Syria’s main opposition group in exile was “deeply skeptical” Friday about Damascus signing an international treaty banning the production and use of chemical weapons, saying a U.N. resolution was needed to enforce compliance.
Syrian President Bashar Assad told Russian TV that his government would start submitting data on its chemical weapons stockpile a month after signing the convention.

Thriving Nazi Memorabilia Auction Business Highlights ‘Perversity’ of Collectors, ADL’s Foxman Says

The twisted niche entered the mainstream in the U.S. when Bill Panagopulos’s auction house, Alexander Auctions, then located in Stamford, Connecticut, sold journals written by concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele during his exile in South America. Now Panagopulos has resurfaced, this time near Washington D.C, and his business is doing better than ever.
Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League and a Holocaust survivor, told The Algemeiner, “Nazi memorabilia is best understood in context, and we would prefer to see it permanently housed in a museum on the Holocaust.”

British Jewish Group Knocks Campaign Criticizing Israeli Medical Treatment of Palestinians

Great Britain’s largest Jewish representative body on Friday criticized a campaign in England that focuses on the negative impact of security precautions on Palestinian patients seeking to enter Israel for medical treatment.
The Zionist Federation said the campaign launched by Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) last week was done so “without providing any necessary context, or mentioning that thousands [of Palestinians] are admitted (to Israel for treatment) every year.”

Pro-Israel New Yorkers Hold Symbolic UJA-Federation Check Burning

On Thursday evening, September 12, a group of between 50 and 75 staunchly pro-Israel New Yorkers attended the latest effort to publicly expose what they are calling Donor Fraud in the institutional Jewish community.
Their campaign is called, “Close Your Wallets,” and they are hoping to encourage Jews to withhold their donations to Jewish institutions until specific guidelines regarding the use of that money are adopted.
The loosely organized group whose leader is Richard Allen, head of JCC Watch, has been gathering outside Jewish institutions on a regular basis for several years. They do this in an effort to draw attention to the use by large Jewish institutions of Jewish charitable donations to support anti-Israel activities and anti-Israel individuals.

Turcas Petrol Proposes 470 KM, $2.5 Billion Pipeline to Connect Israel’s Leviathan Gas Well to Turkey

Turkish pipeline operator Turcas Petrol has proposed to develop and construct a $2.5 Billion, 470 km pipeline to connect the country to Israel’s Leviathan natural gas platform, Israel’s Globes business daily reported on Friday.
Speaking at an international energy conference held in Paphos, Cyprus, on Thursday, Matthew Bruyza, a senior executive at Turcas Petrol and a former U.S. diplomat, said the pipeline could transport 16 billion cubic meters of gas from Leviathan to the southern Turkish ports of Cekisan or Mersin.
Bruyza said the pipeline would be an attractive venture, despite the political risks arising from the strained relations between Israel and Turkey. He said, “Our company and other companies are prepared to take the risk on themselves if the venture is hurt or even torpedoed by political developments.”

Study shows Yom Kippur’s empty roads make for cleaner air

Few, if any, Israelis drive their cars on Yom Kippur, especially in large cities. For those not attending services in synagogue, the preferred method of transportation is biking (many of those bike riders aren’t eating; recent polls show that close to 60% of Israelis fast on the Day of Atonement). The bottom line is that the biggest source of air pollution, the exhaust generated by vehicles, disappears for the day.
According to Levy’s study, the impact on pollution levels is almost immediate. Levels of nitrogen oxide (the building block of smog) drop by 83–98% at different sites in the Tel Aviv area, ozone levels fall significantly, and nitrogen dioxide levels fall as well. The research takes 15 years’ worth of pollution data and analyzes it in order to come to its conclusions.

The Jewish Hunger Games – Released in Time for Yom Kippur! (VIDEO)

The Jewish Hunger Games: Kvetching Fire, a spoof of The Hunger Games, posted to YouTube Thursday by actor Jonathan Rudnitsky, follows Katniss Everstein, Peeta Hummus/Effie Trinketson and more as they try to overcome their temptation to…eat.
On its surface this may seem a trivial challenge, but just tell that to a Jew. As the lead character—whose male companion tells her, “It’s only 24 hours of fasting, it can’t be that bad,”—says,”You don’t get it, you’re a gentile.”

US customs warns Sukkot travelers their etrogs face inspection

U.S. authorities’ new travel guidelines for Sukkot allow passengers to bring the traditional “four species” on board airplanes, but customs regulations warn travelers that their etrogs (citron fruit) face inspection and that European willow twigs are banned.
“TSA’s screening procedures do not prohibit the carrying of the four plants used during Sukkot – a palm branch, myrtle twigs, willow twigs, and a citron – in airports, through or security checkpoints, or on airplanes,” the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement, noting the dates of this year’s Sukkot holiday, from Sept. 18-25. The TSA notice noted that all passengers undergo security screening at checkpoints.

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G'mar chatima tovah 5774 - גמר חתימה טובה

I will slightly update my Yom Kippur message of previous years:

Since a high percentage of my traffic is from people asking about the phrase "G'mar Chatima Tova," here is its translation:

Literally: A good final sealing
Idiomatically: May you be inscribed (in the Book of Life) for Good

I unconditionally forgive anyone who may have wronged me during this year, and I ask forgiveness for anyone I may have wronged as well.

Specifically (as enumerated in previous years, courtesy of The Muqata from a few years back):

• If you sent me email and I didn't reply, or didn't get back to you in a timely fashion -- I apologize. It is sometimes hard for me to answer everyone as I get busier, but I am sorry.
• If you sent me a story and I didn't publish it or worse, didn't give you a hat tip for the story -- I'm sorry. (I sometimes get multiple tips for the same story and I usually credit the first one I saw, which is not always the earliest. And I cannot publish all the stories I am sent, although I try to place appropriate ones in the linkdumps, or tweet them. Whether I like it or not, I am an editor, as well as a writer, graphic designer, video producer, layout editor....so I really can't post everything.)
• If you requested help from me and I wasn't able to provide it -- I'm sorry.
• I apologize if I posted without the proper attribution, with the wrong attribution, or without attribution at all.
• I'm sorry if any of my posts offended you personally.

May this be a year of life, peace, prosperity, happiness and security.

I wish all of my readers who observe Yom Kippur an easy and meaningful fast.

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9/13 Links Part 2: Oslo 20 Years on, 20 Hottest Startups in Israel, Yom Kippur 100 Years Ago.

From Ian:

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Caroline Glick: Israel’s 20-year nightmare

Our media outlets run a constant stream of post-Zionist propaganda that has reduced our elected representatives’ field of action to the size of a postage stamp. They ignore knowledgeable, well-spoken representatives of the majority. They regularly invite cognitively and aesthetically challenged nationalists to their studios to embarrass into silence the majority of viewers who share their opinions. Zionists are hired to high-profile but powerless positions to make the public feel uncomfortable about complaining that its views have no voice in the media.
Today the Obama administration plumbs the depths of strategic dysfunction. The Arab world empowers the most dangerous elements in country after country. The European Union treats Israel as a greater international outlaw than Iran, North Korea or Syria. Anti-Israel indoctrination is the norm on university campuses throughout the Western world. A generation is coming of age that has never heard the truth about the Jewish state.
To contend with all this, the single-most important step Israel must take is to end our 20- year nightmare with the PLO. As long as it continues, we will remain incapable of defending ourselves.

Sarah Honig: Flat earth – 20 years on

The need to pay for our right to live is uniquely Jewish. We alone bear an onus to justify what’s self-evident and inalienable to any other people. Our obsession to perceive things from our enemies’ point of view is unparalleled.
The origins of Jewish guilt for burdening assailants and the compulsion to make amends are traceable to the penchant of every local medieval tyrant to oblige Jewish communities to pay exorbitantly for the privilege of not being slaughtered. Jews began to treat such levies as the way of the world.
That’s possibly why Israelis can’t conceive of their territory as inviolable as that of other nations – ones whose ancestral tribal thugs or robber barons managed to wrest given land holdings. Nobody doubts ordinary nations’ legitimacy or their continued tenure in their various grabbed real estate.
The Jewish state’s postulate, however, is that its existence is impermanent and its possessions are currency with which to haggle for reprieve. No other nation pays for its right to exist, buys time or seeks acceptance.
No nation would countenance such ignominy.
Even so, while we still smart from Oslo’s repercussions, our land-for-peace fanatics mulishly return to their discredited old habits. As with Flat-Earthers, hard evidence and reality checks don’t count.

20 years to Oslo

While the Oslo process failed to attain peace and security for Israel, it was conducive to a partition of the Land of Israel, relieving Israel of the Palestinian burden. Most Israelis have supported the traditional Zionist pro-partition position. They also supported the withdrawal from Gaza and the establishment of a security barrier that signal a desire to disengage from territories heavily populated by Arabs.
Israeli society paid dearly for the Oslo experiment. It can honestly say, "We tried to make peace with the Palestinians," which is a prerequisite for treating future armed conflict as a "no-choice" (ein breira) war. Such an attitude, prevalent during the Oslo years, has been central in forging great Israeli resilience to withstand protracted conflict, and an unwillingness to make dangerous concessions.

What's wrong with a Zionist lobby anyway?

Given that the Middle East conflict dominates world agendas, and has done for a long time, lobbies – pro, anti and powerful – are bound to be active volcanoes. In the American context everyone knows about the Israel lobby, AIPAC.
“There is a big bad lobby that distorts US foreign policy…way out of proportion to its actual support by the American public. But the offending lobby is not AIPAC but rather the Arab lobby, which opposes the Jewish state.” So wrote Mitchell Bard in a book titled, The Arab lobby: the invisible alliance…
Looking today at Barak Obama’s envoy John Kerry and his unequal treatment of the parties in the new peace process, at the way he forced Israel to make concessions and allowed the Palestinians to make demands, it’s not difficult to hazard which of the lobby groups wields the greater power in America – Jewish or Arab.
How they wield power is a different matter. An unhealthy lobby, Bard says, is one that tries with unlimited money to buy what it cannot win on the merits of its case… Which Bard views to be the distinguishing mark of the American Arab lobby.

Guardian’s latest report on MOU between Israel and NSA: What we don’t know

The Guardian published another NSA document today, this time about a Memorandum of Understanding between the NSA and Israel’s SIGINT agency, ISNU, that looks worrying.
If this sounds appalling, that is because several things here are not presented accurately in the Guardian’s story.
For starters, the MOU is dated, in some way, in March of 2009 (there is no date on the document and the Guardian does not say when it was drafted). It is only signed by an Israeli official, and not by any U.S. official, so we do not know if this is the final MOU that frames the intel sharing agreement. But there’s more: this past June, the Guardian reported that in July of 2009 the minimization procedures governing US person information were dramatically tightened.

Security forces gear up for Yom Kippur

In addition, the West Bank was placed under closure starting Thursday night, until Saturday evening when the Day of Atonement comes to an end.
In Jerusalem, forces were to spread out across the city, securing synagogues, the Western Wall, areas along the seamline and those prone to violent demonstrations, and set up roadblocks leading from the eastern part of the city. The police called on those riding bicycles around Jerusalem to use caution.

Revealed: How Terrorists Planned Jerusalem Mall Bombing

In order to put his plan into action, Rumana learned how to make bombs using guides he found on the internet, and worked to gather the chemical materials he would need. He turned one of the rooms of his house into a bomb-making lab.
He forged ties with three other Ramallah men, who helped him to gather the materials he needed, including potassium nitrate, glycerol, and ammonium nitrate.
Rumana attempted to prepare not only bombs, but also explosives for a rocket. He planned to create rockets for use against the nearby Israeli communities of Psagot and Beit El.

Burgas bombing suspects to go on trial in early 2014

Sotir Tsatsarov told reporters that an indictment should be ready in the first three months of next year.
Bulgaria has already identified the suspects as 32-year-old Meliad Farah, also known as Hussein Hussein, an Australian citizen, and 25-year-old Hassan El Hajj Hassan, a Canadian citizen, both of Lebanese origin.
The suicide bomber, who died on the spot in the bombing at Burgas Airport on the Black Sea coast, has not been identified.

Wiesenthal Center urges UN to press Olympic chief on pro-boycott stance

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is urging the United Nations to pressure the International Olympic Committee to force its newly elected president, Thomas Bach, to resign his position as head of a German organization that advocates boycotting Israeli products, Israel Radio reported late Thursday.
Bach, a former fencer who went on to head the German Olympic Committee, is considered a controversial figure due to his position as chairman of Ghorfa, the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a body which supports boycotting Israeli-made products.
In a letter to the UN special advisor on sport, the head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s international relations department, Shimon Samuels, said that Bach’s support for boycotting Israeli products as well as his backing the IOC’s decision to refrain from officially commemorating the slain Israeli athletes from the 1972 Munich games creates a conflict of interest.

The 20 Hottest Startups in Israel

The Israeli startup scene needs little introduction. Tel Aviv is rapidly becoming one of the most innovative tech hubs on the planet, vying with London, New York and Berlin as Silicon Valley's second.
Big acquisitions, such as Waze to Google and Snaptu to Facebook, as well a upcoming IPO for Outbrain means Israeli startups are aspiring for big exits.
To find out more about the near 5,000 startups in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other emerging Israeli hubs, check out Mapped in Israel, a definitive, location-based guide. For now, here are our top 20 hottest Israeli startups.

Advanced Technologies Park brings high-tech to the Negev

Beersheva’s new Advanced Technologies Park is being hailed as a defining moment for the high-tech industry as it stands to date. During the official inauguration, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who earlier this summer declared Beersheva the national cyber center — told the crowd gathered that “this is a day that will change the history of the State of Israel.”
Netanyahu, as well as leaders of the high-tech field, are on a mission to turn Beersheva into a Silicon Valley of Israel’s south. Earlier this summer, Netanyahu announced that IDF technology units will move to the city.

Sea of Galilee gets 600,000 fresh fish

The fish aren’t only expected to increase the lake’s biodiversity, but also to clear its waters of toxins originating in seaweed – the tilapias’ food source – and act as biofilters to balance out the lake’s ecosystem.
Tilapia are introduced en masse into the Sea of Galilee by the Agriculture Ministry each year.

Peres to honor Spielberg, Wiesel with annual award

The president’s office said Thursday that Spielberg will be recognized for his contribution to cinema and “his unique contribution to the memory of the Holocaust, to the State of Israel (and) to the Jewish people.”
The statement commended Spielberg for his work on Schindler’s List, “one of the most important films in the history of cinema.”
Wiesel, a world-renowned author, intellectual and Nobel laureate, survived the Holocaust and is being honored for his work commemorating it across the world, and especially in the US.

Israel Daily Picture: Yom Kippur 100 Years Ago -- Or More

For the 19 years that Jordan administered the Old City, 1948-1967, no Jews were permitted to pray at the Kotel.
The Library of Congress collection contains many pictures of Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall over the last 150 years.
After the 1967 war, the Western Wall plaza was enlarged and large areas of King Herod's wall have been exposed. Archaeologists have also uncovered major subterranean tunnels -- hundreds of meters long -- that are now open to visitors to Jerusalem.

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Photos from today's Islamic Jihad rally "to protect Jerusalem"

Today, Islamic Jihad held a demonstration against Israel allowing Jews to have anything to do with Jerusalem.

It does not look that big, compared to other previous rallies, although perhaps the venue was not as large.

The Hebrew says "We will sacrifice ourselves for Al Aqsa"

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9/13 Links Part 1: Egyptian Tanks Cross Gaza Border, Putin’s Trollpolitik, AQ Praises Boston Bombing

From Ian:

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Egypt Tanks Cross Gaza Border Fence

Two Egyptian army tanks have crossed an initial border fence leading to Gaza for the first time on Thursday, witnesses said.
The Hamas administration in Gaza neither confirmed nor denied the incursion, only commenting that no Egyptian tanks had actually entered the Gaza Strip itself.
Witnesses told the AFP news agency that two tanks "crossed the first Egyptian border fence along the corridor between Egypt and (Gaza), and drove along the road running next to the cement wall that Egypt built."
They said it was the "first time Egyptian tanks have been in this area, although they didn't cross into the area ruled by Hamas," adding that the soldiers on top of the tanks had masked faces.

Hamas gives landmines to Egyptian Islamists, trains them in planting car bombs

The Hamas Islamist group ruling Gaza has been teaching Egyptian Islamists how to plant bombs in cars, Egyptian state television said on Thursday.
Hamas also gave 400 landmines to Egyptian militant groups, said the television. Hamas is an offshoot of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.
Hamas rejected the allegations on Thursday.
"This is completely incorrect," said Fawzi Barhoum, spokesman for the Islamist group. He said that the report was an "attempt to demonize Hamas".

Prof. Gilboa: The Time to Decide is Now, Obama

Arutz Sheva met this week with Gilboa, the Director of the Center for International Communication at Bar-Ilan University, who has made it clear that "time is running out" for United States President Barak Obama to diplomatically handle the crisis in the Middle East.
"Everybody agrees that this is going to be the time for decision, otherwise, if nothing is going to be done, Iran will become a nuclear power. Obama has shown in the chemical weapons crisis in Syria that what he promises may not really become policy," Gilboa said.

Analysis: Syria chemical weapons proposal is Putin’s masterstroke

If, for whatever reason, the Syrians do choose to part with an appreciable fraction of their chemical weapons capability, President Vladmir Putin will be able to bask in an aura of statesmanship. It was he, after all, who proposed this path.
And if the Syrians prove recalcitrant and obstructive, no one will blame the Russian president – on the contrary. He has always denied that the regime used chemical weapons in the first place. Why would anyone think he would care whether they hand the weapons over or not? It will instead be seen as a further achievement for him, as the Americans squirm and try to justify why they are not returning to the path of military action, even though the will of the “international community” is being flouted.
Putin will be able to claim credit in the event of Syrian compliance, and in the event of Syrian defiance.

Vladimir Putin’s Trollpolitik

This is Putin just taunting Obama, speaking to the president as Obama used to speak to his predecessor. It’s difficult to know which part Obama will find most insulting. “The law is still the law” is a good one coming from the unreformed KGB gangster. The same goes for Putin’s plea for Obama to listen to his people. Then there is his professed concern for America’s allies, in which Putin suggests Obama is gambling with Israel’s safety.

7 Hypocritical, False and Misleading Statements in Vladamir Putin's NYT Op-ed

2. "A strike ... could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance."
Hypocrisy. Russia has been supplying Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with weapons and has been helping Iran with its nuclear program. Putin seems less concerned that these actions would destabilize the region and "throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance."

Syria Expert says 'Assad Can Potentially Win this War'

"There is a wide gap of the Russian proposal and what the United States is expecting of Russia and of Syria. The Americans are speaking of the destruction of chemical weapons, while the case for the Syrians and Russians, they are ready to declare that Syria has such weapons. It can end with no agreement and we can end up where we were a week ago."

Syria Joins Anti-Chemical Weapons Treaty, U.S. Unimpressed

State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters that the U.S. option to use military force remains on the table while discussions proceed with Russia on how to remove Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile.
Asked about Syria submitting a document to United Nations and seeking to join the agreement, Harf said, “The Chemical Weapons Convention is an important thing ... but that that would not be a substitute for working with us and the Russians to verify and ultimately destroy their stockpile.”

Report: Assad Scattering Chemical Weapons

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Bashar Al-Assad has begun scattering his massive stockpile of chemical weapons to as many as 50 different sites across the country.
The US newspaper claimed in a report Friday that a secretive military unit at the center of the Syrian chemical weapons program had been charged with moving the lethal stockpile, making it difficult for the international community to track. The newspaper cited US and Europeans intelligence agencies as saying: "Unit 450 is in charge of mixing and deploying chemical munitions, and it provides security at chemical sites."

Syrian rebel chief claims Assad gave Hezbollah nerve gas

According to a report Friday in Saudi Arabia’s al-Watan newspaper, Syrian National Coalition member Kamal al-Labwani said the rebels obtained documents and testimony from a defector from one of the Syrian government’s chemical weapons research centers that indicate Syrian President Bashar Assad transferred roughly one metric ton of VX nerve gas to its ally, Hezbollah.
Al-Labwani told al-Watan that he forwarded documentary proof of his claim to the US Embassy in Jordan and British intelligence in Doha. The al-Watan report could not be independently confirmed.

UN: Syria targets hospitals, denies healthcare as 'weapon of war'

Syrian government forces have deliberately targeted hospitals, attacked field hospitals with fighter jets and prevented the sick and wounded from receiving medical care, UN war crimes investigators said on Friday.
In a special report, they said that the forces of President Bashar Assad had waged a campaign using "the denial of medical care as a weapon of war", especially against people living in opposition-controlled areas.
"There is also evidence that some anti-government armed groups have attacked hospitals in certain areas," said the independent inquiry led by Brazilian expert Paulo Pinheiro.

Syrian Shells Land in Golan Heights as Israeli Hospitals Treat Victims of War

While there are no reports of injuries or damage resulting from the shells on Thursday, wounded Syrians continue being admitted for treatment in Israeli hospitals. Most recently, a Syrian man with a wound to his head, a one-year-old, and a 10-month old were admitted to Western Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, according to the Jerusalem Post and Israel Radio.

U.S. Calls on Egypt to Cancel State of Emergency

The United States on Thursday once again called on Egypt's interim authorities to lift a state of emergency which has been in force since August. The call came after Cairo announced it would extend the state of emergency for two months.
"We remain opposed, as we have from the beginning, to the state of emergency. And we urge the interim government to end it immediately," State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters, according to the AFP news agency.

U.S. and Iran are edging toward direct talks

Signaling a possible thaw in long-frozen relations, the Obama administration and the new leadership in Iran are communicating about Syria and are moving behind the scenes toward direct talks that both governments hope can ease the escalating confrontation over Tehran's nuclear program.
President Obama reportedly reached out to Iran's relatively moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, through an exchange of letters in recent weeks. The pragmatist cleric is scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 24, and after years of the United States cold-shouldering his ultraconservative predecessor, U.S. officials say it's possible they will meet with Rouhani on the sidelines.
Beyond that, U.S. and Iranian officials are tentatively laying the groundwork for potential face-to-face talks between the two governments, the first in the rancorous 34 years since radical students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and founded the Islamic theocracy. Diplomatic relations have been broken ever since.

U.S.: Iran Nuclear Developments Are 'Troubling'

Both the United States and the EU expressed hope that the election of Hassan Rouhani, who has been described by the West as a relative moderate, would lead to a softening of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear defiance.
At the same time, they also said Iran had continued to increase its nuclear capacity in recent months and that no progress had been made so far in a long-stalled UN investigation into suspected atomic bomb research by Iran, which denies any such activity.
They warned that they may seek diplomatic action against Iran at the next quarterly meeting of the 35-nation board of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in late November, if no progress has been achieved by then.

Iranian Media Lauds Humiliating Blow for U.S.

Iran's conservative press trumpeted as a "humiliating blow" the decision by its arch-foe the United States to put on hold plans for a military intervention in Syria following a surprise Russian initiative aimed at defusing the stand-off.
"By taking the Russian initiative seriously, Washington will send a signal to Tehran that it's willing to take risks and make compromises for peace," Reza Marashi of the National Iranian American Council, a Washington-based advocacy organisation, told the AFP news agency.

Erdogan vows to squelch efforts to 'create chaos' as police disperse protests

Riot police used tear gas to disperse pockets of anti-government demonstrators in several Turkish cities for a third night and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan vowed to stamp out what he described as efforts to "create chaos."
Officers backed by armored vehicles and water cannon played cat and mouse into the early hours of Friday with groups of youths in the streets of Kadikoy, on the Asian side of Istanbul, dismantling their makeshift barricades of garbage and rubble.
There were similar protests in Ankara and reports on social media of unrest in the Mediterranean coastal cities of Antalya and Antakya, but the troubles were not on the same scale as the weeks of rioting which rocked Turkey in June and July.

Taliban attacks US Consulate in Afghanistan

Taliban militants attacked the US Consulate in western Afghanistan on Friday morning, using a car bomb and guns to battle security forces just outside the compound in the city of Herat. It was not entirely clear whether any attackers managed to breach the facility, but at least two Afghans died, while the US said its personnel were all safe.
The attack, which also injured several people and wound up leaving five alleged militants dead, underscored the perilous security situation in Afghanistan, where US-led troops are reducing their presence ahead of a full withdrawal next year. The insurgent strikes are no longer concentrated in the country’s south and east, but occur with troubling frequency in the north and west, which have been the more peaceful areas in years past.

Al-Qaida calls for terror attacks in US to 'bleed America economically'

In his audio speech, Zawahri said Muslims should refuse to buy goods from America and its allies, as such spending only helped to fund US military action in Muslim lands. He added that Muslims should abandon the US dollar and replace it with the currency of nations that did not attack Muslims.
Zawahri spoke approvingly of one of the worst attacks on US soil since Sept. 11, 2001, the bombing of the Boston Marathon in April, which US authorities say was carried out by two ethnic Chechen Muslim brothers. The attack killed three people and injured 264.
Zawahri sought to paint the bombing as part of al-Qaida's violent transnational campaign of jihad or holy war against US interests, even if it was relatively small-scale.

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